


Light Mange

by JessJesstheBest



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Adam Parrish's Birthday, Canon Compliant, Fluff, HAPPY BIRTHDAY ADAM!, Hurt/Comfort, It could be on his birthday?, It's not in the fic I just wrote this on his birthday, M/M, Post-Canon, Post-The Raven King, Ronan Swears, THEY RESCUE A PUPPY I HONESTLY DON'T KNOW WHAT ELSE TO TELL YOU, mentions of canon-level violence, mentions of child abuse, shrug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-04
Updated: 2017-07-04
Packaged: 2018-11-23 03:02:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11394015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JessJesstheBest/pseuds/JessJesstheBest
Summary: Adam wasn’t homesick. Not really. Kind of.Not homesick for the double wide trailer where he used to live and cower, but for one specific resident of the trailer park. A furry, four pawed resident with mange and a chunk missing from her left ear.Or the one where Adam and Ronan go and rescue Adam's dog from his parents' double wide.





	Light Mange

**Author's Note:**

> Re-reading _the Raven Boys_ and what ever happened to that dog that was snapping at Gansey's tires in chapter 14 that went mad with happiness when Adam pet her head?
> 
> Also known as LET ADAM HAVE A DOG, GODDAMMIT.

Adam wasn’t homesick. Not really. Kind of.

Not homesick for the double wide trailer where he used to live and cower, but for one specific resident of the trailer park. A furry, four pawed resident with mange and a chunk missing from her left ear.

Thinking of her didn’t really inspire thoughts of home. He’d never really  _ had _ a concept of home before the Barns. But companion sick? Maybe. He had companions, still.

“Heads up, Parrish.”

The warning came just a second too late as a goat came barreling into him, knocking him off-balance so his oblique collided with the hindquarters of the horse he’d been brushing. He released a soft ‘oof’ but otherwise recovered quickly to make sure the horse wasn’t startled.

He shouldn’t have been worried. The particular horse he was attending to was a dream thing, straight from Ronan’s head. It would take a lot more to startle such a creature.

Adam turned to Ronan, eyes narrowed but his mouth betraying just a hint of his amusement. “This is why I didn’t want to have kids with you.”

Ronan’s laugh was a firecracker – whimsical and dangerous.

There weren’t words to describe the Barns that couldn’t also be used for Ronan. They had the same spirit, the same softness, the same magic. Ronan was and wasn’t a home and a place and the Barns was and wasn’t cutting and violent and all of those things were true at the same time. Accepting that the Barns was more than Adam’s apartment at St. Agnes because it  _ demanded _ so much more was what convinced Adam to let his lease run out and move in with Ronan for the summer.

Living at the Barns meant participating in chores. For Adam, at least for the first couple weeks, this meant maintaining the house and the young satyr girl living with Ronan inside of it. After Opal had grown into the idea of being ambassador to the farm animals, however, Adam had been given more responsibility on the grounds. Namely: doing whatever Opal told him the animals wanted.

Today, Mitsubishi wanted brushing.

Another goat glanced off of Adam’s shins.

“Is there a reason you’re propelling goats at me?”

Ronan shrugged, scratching under the chin of yet another goat. “You were looking pretty broody over there. So it’s like ‘Whinny for your thoughts?’”

Adam snorted. “It’s horses that whinny.”

“I can send a fucking horse at you, I just thought goats might be gentler.”

Adam laughed, hiding his face in the side of the horse.

A goat collided with the back of his knees.

“Fuck!” But he was still laughing when Ronan came up and wrapped an arm around his waist.

“For real, why are you pouting?”

Adam sighed, leaning into Ronan’s hold. “I’m not pouting,” he protested. Ronan’s thumb brushed his hip and Adam sunk deeper into his hold. “I was just thinking about Aayla.”

Ronan’s thumb stilled. “That blue chick from  _ Star Wars _ ?”

Adam laughed. “No! Well, yes, but my dog.” Adam shifted a bit. He didn’t like talking about the Before. “We got her when I was 10. I really liked the Clone Wars.”

Ronan grunted. “You have shit taste, Parrish.”

Adam hummed in acknowledgement.

He patted the horse on the ribs before turning in Ronan’s hold. His hand came up to cup Ronan’s elbow. “Did you ever meet her? When you would drop me off or pick me up?”

Ronan frowned, his eyebrows coming together in thought. “Did she ever take a snap at my tires?”

“Maybe.” Adam huffed a bit, an unamused laugh. “She didn’t pick up the best habits when it came to rich fuckers.”

Ronan grunted, rubbing at his jaw. It remembered well the kind of aggressive habits she might have picked up regarding rich fuckers.

“But she was a good dog” Adam continued, brushing Ronan’s jaw with his knuckle, once, before bringing his hand back down to Ronan’s arm. “It was nice having a living thing around that actually liked me.”

Ronan’s face went stony and Adam immediately regretted his cavalier words. He’d meant to help endear Ronan to his beloved mutt but all he’d done was remind Ronan of how much he hated Adam’s parents.

With a roughness that only came from years of fighting as a substitute for loving, Ronan crushed Adam against his chest, burying his cheek in Adam’s neck.

Adam was used to such aggressive displays of affection at this point but he still flinched away from the scratchy whiskers on Ronan’s face tickling the sensitive skin of his neck. Ronan deliberately rubbed the spot again with his chin and Adam laughed, shoving at him with no intent to actually push him away.

“We’re going to get that fucking dog.”

Adam did actually pull away this time. “What? Ronan–”

“Hey, everything in this house loves you, but if I can add something else to the ‘I love Adam Parrish’ party, you damn well bet I’m gonna.”

 

The plan was this: Ronan didn’t have a plan.

That wasn’t entirely fair – Ronan had dreamt a scouting light that would go check to see if the Parrishes were home before they went in and grabbed Aayla. They would have asked to borrow Robobee for the mission but Henry was still off with Blue and Gansey exploring the greater mysteries of the world. And, according to Ronan, ‘Why would I need Cheng’s bee? I can dream something way cooler.’

Adam wasn’t sure if a floating light that would change color to tell them if it was safe or not was in any way ‘cooler’ but that wasn’t an argument he was willing to have right now. 

They were waiting at the end of the dirt road that led into the cluster of double-wides. Adam’s eyes kept skipping around to the lights in the surrounding field, each time feeling disappointed that is was just an ordinary firefly.

Ronan grimaced at the front window, hands gripping the steering wheel in a chokehold of anxiety. His eyes never wavered.

Adam reached out and put a steadying hand on Ronan’s knee. 

“You know,” he started, Henrietta accent buoying the vowels in his speech, making them shallow and twangy, “these fireflies are really romantic.” 

He picked at the loose thread in the hole in Ronan’s jeans. “If we weren’t on a secret mission, we could be makin’ out right now.”

Ronan snorted, the sound seemingly startled out of him. “Like I need manufactured ambience to get you to make out with me, Parrish.”

Adam slid closer, the edge of his butt slipping off the seat and into the center console.

He nuzzled his face into Ronan’s neck. “It just seems a shame to waste it is all.”

He kissed the bolt of Ronan’s jaw. Ronan’s breath hitched.

But then, “There!”

There was another light floating toward them above the grass, clearly other from the fireflies that had set the mood. It was flying directly toward them, not in the dip and sway way of most insects but smooth like it was being pulled on a line.

It was also pulsing bright purple.

“Why purple?”

Ronan turned toward him. Adam could still make out his expression of disappointed disgust from two inches away. “What, you wanted it to be green? This is supposed to be a  _ secret _ mission.”

Adam rolled his eyes and slid into back his seat as Ronan put the car in gear.

It was still early evening, not yet so dark that they couldn’t get away with driving without headlights. Ronan eased the bmw down the dirt road as stealthily as he could manage.

It didn’t make much difference that they were trying to be covert. Everyone in Adam’s old neighborhood knew this car. They knew this was the car of the boy who beat the shit out of Robert Parrish. They knew that this was the car Robert Parrish’s son drove back in only a month or so ago. They suspected the owner of the car’s relationship to Adam. They might have suspected that the car being back meant nothing good.

But, like all those years when Adam got hit and no one called the cops, they kept their heads down and minded their own business like good Virginia folk.

Ronan did a k-turn in front of the double wide, nose of the car facing back toward the road in case they needed to make a quick getaway. Adam had half-expected Aayla to have met them up the road, snapping at Ronan’s tires. That would have made everything easier.

If they could pull up to the trailer and she hadn’t yet come out to greet them, that meant she was inside.

“Fuck,” he said. Ronan rubbed his knee.

Adam didn’t think the trailer was locked but he had a spare key if it was. Robert Parrish held close to the mentality that no one would ever want to fuck with him and his things so he would leave his house open as a show of dominance. Really, he had nothing worth taking.

Nothing except the dog. Which Adam was actually there to take.

The screen door creaked alarmingly when it was opened and Adam tried not to flinch. He trusted Ronan’s dream-light, he knew no one was home, but that sound had for so many years been the split-second warning between Robert Parrish returning home and Adam having his teeth knocked in. Tensing up was just sense memory.

A hand clapped down on Adam’s shoulder and he did flinch.

It was only Ronan.

“Didn’t we agree you were going to stay in the car?”

Ronan smiled, cutting. “You shouldn’t put a skittish dog in a strange car with someone she doesn’t know. I’m going to let her know me first.”

Adam sighed. It was as good a reason as any but Adam suspected Ronan had ulterior motives.

Ronan didn’t want Adam coming back into the trailer alone.

He hadn’t wanted him to after graduation either but Adam hadn’t given him a choice back then. He didn’t think he’d given Ronan a choice now but here Ronan was.

Adam sighed.

He made his way to his old room, sure if Aayla was anywhere, she was there.

He knew she wouldn’t have come out when she heard the door open. She’d been trained out of that after the first few kicks she’d received as a puppy.

_ “Quit yapping, bitch. What, you tryin’ to trip me? You stay out of my face or I’ll take you out back and shoot you, you ain’t better than old yeller.” _

Adam turned the corner and found the door to his old bedroom open. The room had been stripped, whatever Adam hadn’t taken with him probably sold and turned into beer. The only thing left was the bed that had come with the trailer, naked of bedclothes and the resting place of dirty animal, just waking.

Adam grinned, unrestrainedly, as he came up to cup her doggy head. “Hi, baby.”

Her tail started thumping before she’d even gotten a good look at Adam, responding to his gentle hands and soft words. Adam guessed she hadn’t received such affection since he’d left.

She started whining and hopping up and he sat down on the bed, allowing her to lick all over his face. “I know! I know!” he whispered, laughing, attempting to pet her into quietness. “I know, sweetheart, I missed you too. I hated leaving you here.”

Aayla curled into his lap, despite being just too big to quite fit. She squirmed and craned her neck to give Adam that many more kisses. Adam let her, hugging her close and bringing his own face down to kiss any part of her body he could reach.

When he finally looked up, he found Ronan leaning on the door frame, a complicated mix of emotions on his face. First and foremost, there was tenderness.

“Aayla, honey,” he gestured for Ronan to come forward. “This is Ronan.”

Ronan reached out a hand, palm up, for Aayla to sniff. She sniffed once before licking, trailer her tongue up Ronan’s wrist before turning back to Adam and licking his hair.

“Well looks like that’s something you didn’t have to worry about, Lynch.”

Ronan laughed, bringing his now slimy hand up to pet at the mutt’s head. “We’re gonna have to treat her mange, you know. I can’t have her spreading it to the other animals.”

Adam nodded, his head nuzzling Aayla’s ears. “I’m not worried. My boyfriend’s a farmer, he’s really good at caring for lost dogs.”

Ronan cuffed him on the head then immediately leaned down to kiss it.

Adam let himself enjoy it for three beats of his heart. Here, in this bed, in this room, in this double-wide, he’d always sat up and wanted exactly this. Someone who loved him, a loyal pet, a future he could hold with both hands.

The beats passed. Adam missed the Barns.

“We should go.”

Ronan nodded, gripping Adam extra tight before releasing him and backing out of the room.

“Hey, Aayla, you’re gonna come with me now, okay?”

Aayla just kept wagging her tail, trying to lick whatever part of Adam she could reach.

“Okay, girl, follow me.”

As soon as Adam stood up from the bed, Aayla shot out down the hallway. Adam jogged after her, laughing. Ronan held the front door open and she breached the night air, her tongue lolling out in a puppy smile, before, with no warning, her hackles raised and she started growling.

She’d spotted the BMW.

Everyone in Adam’s old neighborhood knew this car.

Adam rushed forward and crouched in front of her. “It’s okay! It’s okay! This is the car that’s going to take us away! We’re getting out of here, huh? Right?”

“Adam.”

Adam looked up. Ronan’s face and shoulders were tense. He was looking over Adam’s head to the top of the BMW. The light was flashing yellow.

“Shit.”

He looked back to Ronan who nodded and tore off to round the car. He jumped in the driver’s seat and turned the car on. Aayla started barking at the growl of the engine.

“No! No. Shh, shhh.” Adam could see headlights. “I love you, please don’t bite me.”

He wished he’d thought to have a blanket when he picked up this squirming dog, at least to spare his exposed arms from her claws as she squirmed. But he didn’t have time to dig for one in the trunk. The headlights were getting closer.

The passenger door swung wide as Ronan pushed it open from the inside. Adam collapsed in the seat, holding Aayla close and shushing her even while she continued to bark.

“Go!”

Ronan wasn’t used to dirt roads. He started off the mark as if he were street racing and the wheels spun out a bit underneath him before he slowed the car down enough for them to get traction.

Once he had the forward momentum he kept it. They did not pause as they passed Robert Parrish’s truck. They did not slow down when he tried to run them off the road. Ronan was a good driver: he swerved then kept on driving.

They burst onto the main road and Aayla stopped barking. She whined, she curled up close in Adam’s lap, she cried.

Adam didn’t stop stroking her. Petting her. “It’s okay, we’re gonna be okay.”

It was okay.

They were going to be okay.

**Author's Note:**

> I know [Stiefvater said that wasn't Adam's dog](http://maggie-stiefvater.tumblr.com/post/167500571836/what-happened-to-adams-dog-that-we-met-in-the), okay? I know. But listen.  
> I want Adam to have a dog. So nyeah.
> 
> [rebloggable version](http://saywhatjessie.tumblr.com/post/162572887180/light-mange)


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